Tag Archives: Bill Cosby

In one of the more unusual scenes to play out at Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial, the judge questioned Cosby under oath as jury deliberations wore on to be sure he knew the mistrial he sought could lead to a second trial.

Cosby, the actor and comedian known as “America’s Dad,” turns 80 next month facing just that ordeal. Legal experts believe prosecutors will reshape their case for Round Two, although it’s not yet clear why jurors couldn’t reach a verdict, or how close they came.

District Attorney Kevin Steele could ask the judge to let more of Cosby’s 60 accusers testify or disclose to jurors that accuser Andrea Constand is gay. That never came up in her seven hours of testimony. The defense had hoped, if it did, to introduce evidence she had previously dated a man.

The moment came suddenly, surprisingly. After nearly a year of sitting silently in a courtroom — and more than two years after a parade of women accusing him of sexual assault had stepped forward — Bill Cosby spoke out in court about the criminal charges against him.

“The Drake,” he said of the hotel where he is alleged to have plied a woman with Champagne — then assaulted her after she passed out — “is in Chicago.”

The clarification, offered to correct a district attorney’s mistake during a pretrial hearing in December, rang out to surreal effect around the courtroom: What defendant helps a prosecutor identify the site of an alleged sexual assault?

One thing was clear: Cosby was not going to let others define his actions for him, even with an offhand misstatement of where an incident took place.

As Cosby’s sexual assault trial begins Monday in a suburban courtroom north of Philadelphia, the disgraced entertainer will try to seize the narrative, just as he did when he gave his first major interview about the case to Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish last month.

Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault stemming from a 2004 encounter at his Cheltenham, Pa., mansion with Andrea Constand, a former Temple University basketball coach, in which he allegedly initiated sexual contact after giving her wine and a pill.

The outcome could determine whether the entertainer goes to prison for up to 10 years.

The entertainer is allegedly misuing his role as defendant in a civil lawsuit to benefit his defense in a criminal matter. Back in February, after being criminally charged with sexual assault, Bill Cosby demanded to delay a defamation lawsuit brought by several women who claim being falsely branded as liars. At the time, plaintiffs’ attorney Joseph Cammarata urged a Massachusetts judge to move forward, talking about the need to depose, among others, Cosby’s former attorney Martin Singer, music producer Quincy Jones and agents at William Morris Endeavor.

Cammarata beat back a full stay of the case, but now he has reversed himself. Late last week, the attorney filed a motion to completely pause discovery of the civil lawsuit pending the end of the criminal prosecution.

It’s not every day when a plaintiff demands delay, but in the unfolding saga surrounding Cosby, there’s hardly much typical. The defamation case has numbers — six accusers — but the criminal one over Cosby’s alleged assault of former Temple University employee Andrea Constand has consequences. Should Cosby lose the Constand case scheduled to go to trial in Pennsylvania next June, he could spend most of his final days on Earth in a jail cell. What makes the interplay between the criminal and civil cases complicated is the possible trial testimony from many of Cosby’s accusers, including those suing him for defamation, but also others who are listed in court papers merely as knowledgeable witnesses.

In November, the Pennsylvania judge overseeing the criminal matter denied Cosby an opportunity to have a competency hearing to examine these women. At a court hearing next week, Cosby’s attorneys will argue they shouldn’t be allowed to testify for the prosecution about alleged prior bad acts.

In the meantime, Cosby has been pursuing depositions of the potential witnesses via the civil lawsuits.

“It appears that Defendant is misusing discovery in this action to conduct fact-finding for his own benefit in the criminal case,” states Cammarata’s memorandum in support of a stay. “This state of affairs should not continue, and there is little to gain in doing so.”

The plaintiffs’ attorney has been frustrated in his own efforts to investigate Cosby. For example, after Cosby filed counterclaims for tortious interference with his NBC and Netflix deals, Cammarata has been trying to measure the supposed harm to Cosby’s career only to be flummoxed by objections. Cammarata also deposed Singer in May, but didn’t get much because of the assertion of attorney-client privilege. Cammarata hasn’t been able to question Cosby about the nature of his relationship with female accusers, but he says that Cosby’s attorneys have been allowed to depose his clients.

“Since discovery began, it has been practically one-sided, in favor of Defendant,” writes Cammarata.

So now, upon word that Cosby wants to depose non-plaintiffs who may be testifying in the criminal action, Cammarata wants a time-out, doing what Judy Huth’s attorney Gloria Allred recently did in a civil case in California. There, Cosby’s attorneys fought against a discovery stay, telling the judge that the gambit represented a “breathtaking level of hypocrisy and gamesmanship,” and that the entertainer had a right to depose witnesses.

The Montgomery County, Pa., D.A. agrees with Cammarata and Allred, recently issuing a letter, expressing that “it is improper and inappropriate for the defendant or his attorneys to use the civil process to attempt to depose Commonwealth witnesses or otherwise gather discovery related to the pending criminal charges.”

Speaking of the interplay between the criminal and civil cases, it was the D.A.’s original decision more than a decade ago to not prosecute Cosby that allowed him to give a deposition in Constand’s civil case. The revelation of that 2005 deposition, where Cosby admitted obtaining quaaludes to give to women for sex, helped re-ignite the criminal case. On Monday, the Pennyslvania judge denied Cosby’s efforts to preclude the deposition at trial.

Lindsay Lohan has several mugshots under her belt, but her first booking photo from 2007 might be the best! She was arrested on July 24 in Santa Monica, Calif., after officers suspected she was driving under the influence. Cops also discovered a small amount of cocaine in her pocket. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one day in jail and 10 days of community service. She spent 84 minutes behind bars before being released due to “overcrowding.”

Michelle Rodriguez was arrested in Hawaii in 2005 after she was suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol. In April 2016, a judge had her choose between 240 hours of community service or 5 days in jail. She chose the jail time and also paid a $500 fine.

Amanda Bynes was arrested in 2012 for DUI after she hit a police car in West Hollywood. In 2014, she entered a plea deal for the charge, promising to serve three years probation and to pay a fine.

Artis Leon Ivey Jr., a.k.a. Coolio, was arrested in Las Vegas in 2012 after he and a friend were stopped for a routine traffic violation. When cops ran his name through the system, they found he had two active bench warrants and he was arrested on the spot!

Heather Locklear definitely did not look her best in her 2008 mugshot! She was arrested in Santa Barbara for driving under the influence of a controlled substance after a witness called cops out of fear for the actress’ safety. In 2009, the case was dismissed after she promised to serve an informal three-year probation, pay a $700 fine and complete a 12-hour road safety class.

Shia La Beouf was arrested in Austin, Texas, in 2015 for public intoxication. Onlookers reportedly recalled that the Transformers star was behaving erratically outside a bar. He then started running down the street and jaywalked right in front of patrol officers. The status of the case is unknown at this time.

TV dad Bill Cosby was arrested in December 2015 and criminally charged for the alleged 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand. He was released on $1 million bail. The controversial case is ongoing.

On Jan. 23, 2014, Justin Bieber was arrested on suspicions of driving under the influence and drag racing in Miami Beach. He admitted to officers that he had been drinking alcohol, taking prescription drugs and smoking marijuana. He was eventually charged with DUI, resisting arrest and driving with a suspended license. Later on in 2014, the singer accepted a plea deal that required him to donate $50,000 to a youth charity and to attend anger management classes.

Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. was arrested in 1996 for possession of a controlled substance. He was stopped for speeding on a Los Angles highway and was promptly arrested when cops found cocaine, heroin and a pistol in his car. In December 2015, California governor Jerry Brownissued an official pardon for the crime.

Khloe Kardashian was arrested for driving under the influence on March 4, 2007. Just over a year later she reported to jail again for violating her probation and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. She was released three hours later due to overcrowding.

Blac Chyna was arrested at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas on Jan. 29, 2016, after causing a scene at the airport. She was eventually charged with third degree felony possession and public intoxication. She was released from prison on $8,000 bail, and the case is ongoing.